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Wednesday, January 4, 2012

What human motivation gets the most wonderful things done? It's really a silly question, because the answer is so simple. It turns out that it's human greed that gets the most wonderful things done. When I say greed, I am not talking about fraud, theft, dishonesty, lobbying for special privileges from government or other forms of despicable behavior. I'm talking about people trying to get as much as they can for themselves. Let's look at it.

This winter, Texas ranchers may have to fight the cold of night, perhaps blizzards, to run down, feed and care for stray cattle. They make the personal sacrifice of caring for their animals to ensure that New Yorkers can enjoy beef. Last summer, Idaho potato farmers toiled in blazing sun, in dust and dirt, and maybe being bitten by insects to ensure that New Yorkers had potatoes to go with their beef.

Here's my question: Do you think that Texas ranchers and Idaho potato farmers make these personal sacrifices because they love or care about the well-being of New Yorkers? The fact is whether they like New Yorkers or not, they make sure that New Yorkers are supplied with beef and potatoes every day of the week. Why? It's because ranchers and farmers want more for themselves. In a free market system, in order for one to get more for himself, he must serve his fellow man. This is precisely what Adam Smith, the father of economics, meant when he said in his classic "An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations" (1776), "It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest." By the way, how much beef and potatoes do you think New Yorkers would enjoy if it all depended upon the politically correct notions of human love and kindness? Personally, I'd grieve for New Yorkers. Some have suggested that instead of greed, I use "enlightened self-interest." That's OK, but I prefer greed.

Free market capitalism is relatively new in human history. Prior to the rise of capitalism, the way people amassed great wealth was by looting, plundering and enslaving their fellow man. Capitalism made it possible to become wealthy by serving one's fellow man. Capitalists seek to discover what people want and then produce it as efficiently as possible. Free market capitalism is ruthless in its profit and loss discipline. This explains much of the hostility toward free market capitalism; some of it is held by businessmen. Smith recognized this hostility when he said, "People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices." He was hinting at government-backed crony capitalism, which has come to characterize much of today's businesses.

Free market capitalism has other enemies -- mostly among the intellectual elite and political tyrants. These are people who believe that they have superior wisdom to the masses and that God has ordained them to forcibly impose that wisdom on the rest of us. Of course, they have what they consider to be good reasons for restricting liberty, but every tyrant who has ever lived has had what he considered good reason for restricting liberty. A tyrant's agenda calls for the attenuation or the elimination of the market and what is implied by it -- voluntary exchange. Tyrants do not trust that people acting voluntarily will do what the tyrant thinks they should do. They want to replace the market with economic planning and regulation.

The Wall Street occupiers and their media and political allies are not against the principle of crony capitalism, bailouts and government special privileges and intervention. They share the same hostility to free market capitalism and peaceable voluntary exchange as tyrants. What they really want is congressional permission to share in the booty from looting their fellow man.

Walter E. Williams

Dr. Williams serves on the faculty of George Mason University as John M. Olin Distinguished Professor of Economics and is the author of 'Race and Economics: How Much Can Be Blamed on Discrimination?' and 'Up from the Projects: An Autobiography.'

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Our Mission

I am not bound to please thee with my answers.William Shakespeare

We have been following this path (active prepping) since the early 1990's. In our case this includes military training, weapons training, hunting, fishing, tracking, advanced martial arts training in open hand CQB and hand weapons, orienteering, outdoors skills, and other less obvious but important skills. Your training and skills should, as much as possible, always be seen as tools that need to be improved. You never know everything and you can always forget what you know.

This site is dedicated not just to survival, but to the people who choose to live, with dignity as sovereign beings. We see too many people who focus entirely too much energy in pleasing themselves with shallow pursuits. Sacrificing their own freedom, and independence.

I believe we can all be sovereign citizens - by living life for ourselves; and not for the sake of others, or a group, or a collective state. Too many people spend too much of their time, money and lives concerned with what others think of them, and trying to gain the esteem of strangers. This is dangerous and not only effects how they spend the bulk of their money and their life's productivity, but even how they vote and how they view governance.

This "lifepath" I just described, which I call "living life for others", (Ayn Rand called it, "second hand living"), impacts the choices many people make about the cars they drive, the houses they own, even the clothes they wear. In its most essential form, it is an unthinking compulsion, or need to impress other people. The cold fact is other people, especially strangers - do not think about, or care at all, what you drive, what you wear, or what sort of house you live in; and even if they did, is it not somewhat insane to live life this way.

This false life path of "living to impress others" or "maintaining appearances" is a central ingredient of collectivist governance, and religious power schemes. It is how organizations like governments and religions control people. This primary tool of control has been used by countless entities: organized religion; and later by governments....i.e., leninism, marxism, socialism, facism whatever you may call it. They and all other collectivist forms of control use a few simple but effective mechanisms to control people; the desire to "belong", and....altruism.

Like Spock in Star Trek - the proponents of collectivism believe "the needs of the many, outweigh the needs of the few, or the one".

But this is a false and dangerous lie....for who determines what "need" is, and how exactly is the "many" determined?

By this vague but noble sounding principle two people....maybe your neighbors.....should be allowed to get together and "vote" to steal your belongings; your food, maybe your house, maybe your children......or even your life.

Why NOT - don't their needs outweigh yours?

The right answer, of course - is NO. America was, historically, the only form of government EVER founded on the principle that an INDIVIDUAL'S needs are paramount; and that together we all make up a society of individuals and that a proper governments central responsibility is to protect the INDIVIDUAL rights of its citizens.

Collectivism is a corrupt ideology by which people are legally allowed to steal the property, and productivity of an individual, any individual. They are justified by a vague undefined notion of the "needs" of some group or collective. Which can never be satisfied because "NEED" is always great according to someone.

Modern collectivism also has another benefit to its followers - it's phony altruism provides a twisted path to easy nobility. This un-earned nobility is often driven by the need to impress others with your apparent "compassion".

The answer to this is simple - Live life for yourself. Make choices for yourself - based on the way YOU want to live, and the person YOU want to be.

Do not concern yourselves with what others do, and how they choose to live. Learn to be at peace with your choices, and find yourself and true contentment.-----------------------------------------------------------------